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Early Civilized Warfare
The first form of civilized warfare was over hunting grounds. With lower populations people just moved to different hunting grounds if another group got all the game. With increased populations the winners would kill the losers and take all the meat for themselves, although, they might spare the women. As population densities grew with agriculture, surpluses, and civilized governments in city-states, this changed; the winner would either tax the losers, or make them all slaves.thumb|right|350px Early Bronze Age (3000-1700 BCE) As cities grew and aquired more wealth, it gave people something to fight for and intensified warfare. However, armies were only made with peasant levies and cities didn't have all the resources for paying for a large-scale army. Therefore, all defenders built sun-baked mud brick walls to hide behind until the invaders had to leave. The worst possible scenario would be having to acknowledge the invaders as overlords and pay them tribute, then, when the time comes, they would revolt. Some time after 2400 BCE the battering ram was invented, letting invaders literally pulverize city walls. Therefore, the invaders could either directly tax and occupy the city, or sac it and leave it in ruins. This led to the first empires (Do not get an empire or country mixed up with a civilization. A civilization is a set of two or more cities sharing a common culture such as Mesopotamia which contains several city-states at constant war, one of them being the famed Babylon.) such as the Akkadian Empire (c. 2350-2250 BCE) and the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2100-2000 BCE.) Climate change has been a really big factor. Take the drought in Mesopotamia around 2000 BCE for example. Wars became more frequent and brutal. More warfare brings even more warfare. Near the time of 1800 BCE early Indo-European nomads came down from the north into the Middle East with two deaadly weapons: The horse-drawn chariot, and the composite bow. Together these two enhancements improved a nations firepower, and mobility,plus to see a powerful, majestic horse then would be rare. Kingdoms crushed, and fell as nomads came in like aliens in a movie. Such empires that fell were lower Egypt, by the Hyksos, Babylon, by the Kassites, and the Aryans moved into the ruins of the Indus River Civilization. High Bronze Age (1700-1000 BCE) Since bronze, horses, and chariots were so expensive, each kingdom had an autocratic leader with a smaller force of men that could afford to arm themselves and keep the mass of peasents calm and safe. Bronze was in fact, so expensive that most people still lived in the stone age. Therefore, the way wars were fought largely determined their political and social structure. Sometime around 1200 BCE a new tactic gave empires new ways to fight one another. most of the advantage chariots gave their owners was psychological. Therefore, two groups of charioteers went out and battled while two groups of infantry stood back and watched. Behind each charioteer was a runner, who would, if needed, come and retrieve the body of his downed charioteer and finish off the enemy. Such runners came to think that lightly armed infantry, with javelins and spears could take out both charioteers and their horses. This new tactic led to be the downfall of empires. Although Egypt barely survived, the Hittite Empire, Mycenaean Empire, and the Kassites all collapsed, allowing the victors to plunder the riches of these kingdoms. The Trojan War, immortalized by Homer, also took place at this time. For the next 200 years chaos would prevail, until a new metal, iron, would stand as the foothold of great kingdoms. Early Iron Age (1000-500 BCE) Because iron is so plentiful, often being called the democratic metal, most likely ushered in the real age of metals for most people in the civilized world once they had developed and mastered the techniques needed to smelt and shape materials using iron. Iron allowed the exploitation of new forms of wealth, which usually led to more wars. Iron revolutionized warfare because it was so cheap, and thus, empires could field larger armies. Two other factors contributed to the effort of building empires. Firstly, the phoenetic alphabet allowed governments to keep records of things such as taxes, wars, etc. and therefore giving them a much tighter grasp on the control of their people. The other, was mounted cavalry which replaced the more cumbersome chariot that needed a much flatter surface in which to operate. Mounted messengers also kept rulers better informed on things such as invasions, allowing an empires size to expand greatly. An example is the Neo-Assyrian Empire (934-609 BCE) which was three times the size of any prevvious empire. Another is the Achaemenid Persian Empire (550-330 BCE) which was several times larger still. Besides helping bigger empires, iron equipped armies also had a radically different political effect: Namely, the rise of democracy among the Greeks. Next article Previous article Back to History Outline Sources http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGcYGwqb3So&feature=player_embedded http://www.flowofhistory.com/%5Bmenupathalias%5D/fc6b